Cid (Pierce Gagnon, Looper)

Not so much a character as a mid-film narrative atom bomb, Cid completely transforms Rian Johnson’s Looper from time travel flick into something else entirely.

By far the eeriest performance of the year, Pierce Gagnon seems to be seven-going-on-70 in terms of the ability / comic timing he brought to Johnson’s key character.

And Johnson seems relieved about his find.

“Oh my god, Pierce. Looking back I’m kind of terrified that I hinged the success of the backend of the movie on finding someone like Pierce. It’s really rare to find a kid who can do what he does. He would do three-page dialogue scenes with Emily and Joe and hold his own against them all the way through.”

Richard Parker (The Life Of Pi)

One of Life Of Pi ’s many triumphs, Richard Parker could easily have been anthropomorphised by a lesser director, transformed into a third-act best friend for our lead – but the tiger that got lost at sea is a snarling, prowling mass of teeth and claws for the duration of the film.

A mixture of CGI creature, green-screened beast and practical puppet, Parker manages to elicit fear, compassion, and affection, without ever breaking character as a believable big cat.

Hulk (Mark Ruffalo, Avengers Assemble)

Hulk hasn’t had an easy journey to the big screen, with two different takes completely forgetting the key ingredient of the conflicted character: fun.

Luckily, Joss Whedon understands each separate chemical compound of the concept of fun, giving the angry green giant two stand-out scenes that caused the audience we saw it with to erupt into spontaneous applause.

And then he threw in one more for good luck.

Of all the Avengers who assembled this summer, Hulk was by far the most victorious.

Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey)

Having seen the film, we know exactly what that reason is. There is no-one better to play Bilbo Baggins.

Freeman makes him loveable from the moment we see him, pipe in hand.

And, considering he’s the protagonist of what’s essentially a kids' book, it’s a surprisingly layered performance – particularly in the scene where he holds his sword to the throat of a returning character - you can see Baggins’ thought process silently play out across Freeman’s face.

It’s a wonderful character on the page, and now we’ve seen Freeman’s take, we can’t imagine Bilbo any other way.